Strengthening Epistemological Bridges in the XI International Congress of Ethnobiology

• CUSCO DECLARATION
• INDIGENOUS FORUM DECLARATION
• DECLARATION OF THE NETWORK OF CONSERVATIONISTS OF THE NATIVE POTATO
• REPORTS AND SUMMARIES FROM CONGRESS SESSIONS
  • + SESSION 1
    • REPORT
    • ABSTRACT BOOK
    • PRESENTATIONS
    • FIELD WORKSHOPS
    • MULTIMEDIA LIBRARY
    • WEBCASTS
  • + SESSION 2
    • REPORT
    • ABSTRACT BOOK
    • PRESENTATIONS
    • FIELD WORKSHOPS
    • MULTIMEDIA LIBRARY
    • WEBCASTS
  • + SESSION 3
    • REPORT
    • ABSTRACT BOOK
    • PRESENTATIONS
    • MULTIMEDIA LIBRARY
  • + SESSION 4
    • REPORT
    • ABSTRACT BOOK
    • PRESENTATIONS
    • FIELD WORKSHOPS
    • MULTIMEDIA LIBRARY
    • WEBCASTS
  • + SESSION 5
    • REPORT
    • ABSTRACT BOOK
    • PRESENTATIONS
    • MULTIMEDIA LIBRARY
  • + POSTER SESSION
    • REPORT
    • ABSTRACT BOOK
    • POSTERES
    • MULTIMEDIA LIBRARY
  • + FIELD WORKSHOPS
    • POTATO PARK
    • MORAY
    • PITUMARCA
• REPORTS FROM THE INDIGENOUS FORUM
  • REPORT
  • ABSTRACT BOOK
  • PRESENTATIONS
  • MULTIMEDIA LIBRARY
• REPORTS AND RECORDS FROM THE PARALLEL ACTIVIES OF THE CONGRESS
  • WORKSHOP: ANDEAN AND MESOAMERICAN COLORS
  • 1ST MEETING OF THE AYLLU OF THE NATIVE POTATO
  • RAINBOW CIRCLE OF WISEPEOPLE AND ELDERS
  • PEOPLE OF CORN
  • THE IMPORTANCE OF GUAJES IN MEXICO
  • THE CLIMATE IS CHANGING, AND SO IS MY LIFE
  • WILLANAKUYNINCHIS - NUESTRO DIALOGO
  • ARTISITIC INDIGENOUS PRESENTATION
  • ROUND TABLE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL OF THE POTATO
  • BOOK LAUNCHINGS
• REQUEST CERTIFICATE

The key objective of the XI International Congress of Ethnobiology was to strengthen the roles of indigenous peoples and local communities in the management of their Collective Biocultural Heritage and in the reinforcement of their rights to their traditional resources and livelihoods, accentuating the need for integrated spaces for action-research, as well as the development of recommendations for global policy. The congress methodology was designed to promote epistemological bridges, dissolving barriers created by the traditional roles of academics, apprentices and community participants, in regard to the reflection on the principal theme of “Collective Biocultural Heritage and Local Livelihoods.”

The academic sessions provided the opportunity to academics and practitioners from around the world to present their case studies related with the following five thematic areas:

Parallel to the academic sessions, an indigenous forum was developed with the theme “Food Sovereignty and Local Livelihood.” The key objective of the forum was to promote the perspectives and needs of indigenous peoples and local communities in the policies that are developed on sustenance, agriculture and the protection of Biocultural Heritage.

Specifically, the forum sought to empower indigenous peoples in regard to their right to control food production and local markets, as well as their right to healthy and culturally-appropriate food, access and control of communal lands, water and genetic resources and the utilization of sustainable models of production. During the indigenous forum, four working groups analyzed the theme of the forum and its relation to the key themes of the academic sessions:

Integrated Sessions were designed to facilitate the exploration of how Ethnobiology as a discipline and practice can improve biocultural diversity, promote food sovereignty and support local livelihoods. During these sessions, working-group delegates from the indigenous forum and participants from the academic sessions formulated key questions that reflected the primary preoccupations of each separate session, and through intercultural and interdisciplinary collaborative dialogue, conclusions to these inquiries were drawn and were shared with all of the Congress participants during the plenary sessions.

The utilization of new methodologies during an International Congress demonstrated a challenge for the different session organizers and coordinators. In spite of the common discourse in the field of Ethnobiology, in respect to the promotion of participatory methodologies and intercultural dialogue within research, the experience of the ICE proved that intercultural dialogue is not easy to achieve and for some, it is not a common practice. The integrated sessions were coordinated jointly by the delegates of the indigenous forum and the coordinators of the academic sessions, who worked together to overcome the difficulties of intercultural dialogue: the facilitation of discussion in several languages, overcoming hostilities that arise due to previous unsuccessful interactions, building common concepts and vocabularies for discussion.